Increase productivity at work: just add air, sunlight, and water

Only 53% of
wage earners think their place of work helps their productivity. And
with good reason. The broad and ongoing Leeseman Index joins the dots
between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the most common employee
complaints about their surroundings.

This is
according to Workplace Strategies and Change Manager, Nigel Oseland,
when he addressed the Green Building Convention 2017 held in Cape Town
earlier this month and hosted by the Green Building Council South
Africa (GBCSA).

“Only once we
meet our lowest level of needs can we go on to achieve our potential.
It’s got to do with health at the bottom of the pyramid – so air, light
and water,” explained Oseland.

A quantified
relationship between productivity and air quality, noise and
temperature, established by more than 200 studies shows the average 5 –
7% increase in employee productivity easily covers any cost premiums of
working in a healthy space that assists attention and concentration,
Oseland said.

Advantages
to each element of office space

“Deep buildings
with windowless workspaces must disappear. These buildings, by
definition, lock in a chemical soup of materials and occupant
activities with serious consequences for human health. From asthma, to
skin and eye irritations, to reproductive health and cancer,” warned
Professor Vivian Loftness of the Carnegie Mellon University School of
Architecture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “They do this by locking out
the natural conditioning resources of passive solar heating, daylight,
ventilation and passive cooling.”

1. Shorter hospital stays in sunny
rooms

“Nature’s
renewables are at the centre of human health and environmental
resiliency. As humans we have a natural affinity to nature, known as
Biophilia,” she said. “We will rediscover the engineering and art of
effective daylight design, and not only because studies show that if
you are in a sunny hospital room you’ll have a 26% reduction in length
of stay, but because it can displace between 30 – 75% of lighting
needs, and 25 – 75% of heating demands. We should not have to turn on
lights in the daytime.”

2. Daylight restores sleep cycles

“Our brains are
stimulated by daylight,” Loftness continued, citing research linking
exposure to morning sunlight to an improved sleep time by more than 30
minutes in six-year-old learners. In a separate study, poor performing
learners slept 25 minutes less and went to bed 40 minutes later on
school nights than good performers.

3. Natural air flow brings better
concentration

In 2015 a
double-blind office study on increased outdoor air ventilation rates
and controlled VOCs identified a 42% increase in average
cognitive scores when working in a green building, and 51% increase
when in a ‘deep green’ building, verses a conventional building.

“Besides
increased worker performance, natural ventilation saves 20 – 40% of
cooling, and 70% of ventilation costs. Net zero buildings will be
designed for natural ventilation as the dominant ventilation and
cooling strategy for every possible hour, enhancing productivity, human
health and community,” she predicted. Typical improvements brought
about a financial return of 756%.

4. Views from desks help focus

“Call centre
agents had a 6 – 7% improvement in handling time simply by having
seated access to views through larger windows with vegetation content,
amounting to an ROI of 299%,” Loftness said, citing a study explaining
why a visual connection to nature is important.

Market’s
growing demand for green

It’s beyond
dispute that people with access to the natural environment are
healthier and it facilitates productivity. It is expected that future
tenanting requirements will include above ground views, window and
outdoor access, operable windows, natural ventilation, mixed-mode
conditioning, daylight and indoor plants. “And, considering associated
productivity gains, the payback period is sometimes measured in
months,” she said.

Tenanting
requirements linked to the advantages of green buildings brought a
strong response from property firms, including Growthpoint. “By
end-2017 Growthpoint will have at least a 4 Star Green Star
certification for 100 of its buildings,” said Head of Sustainability
and Utilities at Growthpoint, Werner van Antwerpen, at the convention.

“Green buildings
offer real benefits: reduction in electricity and water costs, improved
air quality and increased productivity. As such we have a free app
which benchmarks the Energy Water Performance rating of our green
buildings for clients so they can see their savings per square metre.”

Whether or not
your work environment helps, or hinders, your productivity and that of
your team, it is likely no surprise that natural lighting and fresh air
increases capacity for work. Although, who would have thought that the
simple act of rolling up a blind and opening the window could make the
difference between finishing your work promptly – or not?

Trapped inside: Tips
for when you work deep inside your building

Design for peace and quiet: Most
office work places are busy and
distracting, designed for extroverts who, ironically spend less time in
the office, and then not at their desks, says Oseland. What to do?
Motivate that your inside spaces are designed for roles and
personalities.

Practice Shinrin-yoku:
Take a leaf from the Japanese and go “forest
bathing” to experience the medicine of simply being in the forest. It
is a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese
medicine.